TEMA: Generation Jesus
The Ukrainian response to Russia's disinformation campaigns
With 73 percent of the world's population having access to the internet, it has become very easy to spread mis- and disinformation. This is what Russia is doing to try and destabilize the Ukrainian population and win the war. The Ukrainian defense is not on the battlefield of the internet, but in the classroom.
Offentliggjort
The first casualty when war comes is truth,” a saying commonly attributed to U.S. politician Hiram Johnson, is more relevant today than ever.
Through social media platforms, misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda spread at unprecedented speed.
What once took days or weeks to circulate can now reach millions within minutes. Those who control the narrative can shape the course of a conflict.
Over the last few years disinformation has proven to be an incredibly powerful tool to win conflicts and elections. This is exactly what Russia is trying to take advantage of in the current conflict with Ukraine.
Through a mixture of deepfakes and false information they target their own population, the Ukrainian population and the international audience, all to try and control the narrative about the conflict.
This is according to a report from the American independent thinktank RAND from 2024
But the Ukrainian response is not to counter with more disinformation. The response is to education.
“Media literacy is actually the solution”
Says Florian Schmidt, chief of the fact checking department at APA.
And this is the Ukrainian solution.
According to data from the RAND report Ukraine has launched large scale media literacy campaigns including a Center for Countering Disinformation and a Center for Strategic Communication.
The Ukrainian strategy also includes civil efforts with anti-disinformation media like Detector and StopFake. Furthermore, more than 15.000 people have been thoroughly trained in media literacy with the aim of teaching others.
